The Beginning of the Third Time

Amamiya Hiroto has been cursed by the god of transmigration, Rodcorte!

I think I heard this kind of announcement inside my head, but I don’t really remember too well. In a state of being neither awake nor asleep, my consciousness gradually begins to take shape.

『Where is this place? What kind of situation am I in now? Though I get the feeling that I’m alive.』

But I don’t have a good idea of what kind of circumstances I’m in.

Even if I open my eyes, only darkness fills my vision and my arms and legs aren’t moving well, as if I’m in the middle of a dream.

My entire body is submerged in a warm fluid, and I can’t breathe. But I don’t feel any discomfort from this. It’s like I’ve become a fish.

『Surely it’s not possible that I’ve been reincarnated as something other than a human?』

It’s possible, since I’ve been cursed, after all. Things might work out if I’m still a human, at least, but if I’ve become an animal or a fish then I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.

But fortunately, my suspicions are proven to be wrong.

『~♪』

I can hear a voice. It’s not crying or shouting; it’s a gentle, singing voice.

The sound is strangely muffled, so I can’t make out the lyrics properly. But I can feel the emotion in the song.

Love.

『I see, I’m inside the womb. I’m a fetus right now.』

It seems that the god’s curse isn’t able to influence me before I’m reborn, at least.

From the fragments of information about the situation that Rodcorte put in my mind before I was reincarnated, Lambda seems to be a world with swords and magic. I might be some other species like an Elf or a Dwarf, but as long as I’m a sentient being, I don’t have a problem with that.

『Is it just my imagination? This song sounds kind of like Japanese...』

And then my consciousness melts away again.

The next time my consciousness returns, I’ve already been born.

「You’re always quiet, aren’t you, Vandalieu? It’s good that you are, but you’re allowed to cry from time to time, you know?」

I quietly look up at the woman who’s holding me and speaking to me.

『I suppose Vandalieu is my new name. It’s a lot better than the serial number I was assigned in Origin. And this person must be my third mother. She seems much better than the one I had in Origin as well.』

By the time I was self-aware in Origin, I’d already been sold, so I have no complaints about this beginning to my life. Considering I have a curse in place of a god’s blessing, this could be called a miracle.

『Well then, what kind of environment have I been born into? It seems my mother is a Dark Elf.』

The mother reflected in Vandalieu’s eyes was a woman in her early twenties with golden hair and dark brown skin. She was a beautiful woman with pleasant features; Vandalieu could have high hopes for his own appearance if this person was his mother.

The tips of her ears were pointed.

Even Vandalieu, who had only just been reborn into this world, could guess that she was a member of the dark-skinned Dark Elf race.

Well, it was not entirely impossible that she was simply a tanned Elf.

『Well, if that’s the case, I suppose it makes sense that she lives in a cave, huh.』

Indeed, the two of them were not in a cave-like house, but an actual cave.

There was a door and furs are spread out across the floor in place of a carpet, but it wasn’t a particularly civilized home.

But the Elves in fantasy stories on Earth were generally people that live in harmony with nature, so perhaps this kind of thing was normal for them.

『Well, the more important problem is my own body.』

His mother’s warm arms were wrapped around his fragile body. He looked at her soft skin that reminded him of chocolate, and then at his own plump, useless hands.

His hands were as white as silk.

『Why is my color different? Though my ears do seem to be pointed.』

His mother was a Dark Elf, but his skin was white. Could it be that he wasn’t a Dark Elf himself? He didn’t know how Dark Elves’ bodies change over the course of their lives. Could it be that they were born with white skin that turned darker as they grew into adults?

Or could it be that this person was not biologically his mother?

「Hmm? Are you curious as to why your mommy’s skin is a different color? You’re clever, aren’t you, Vandalieu? To notice that already. But don’t worry. Vandalieu, you just look a lot like your daddy, but you are definitely your mommy, Darcia’s, son.」(Darcia)

As Darcia, Vandaleiu’s mother, smiled gently, her words dispelled his doubts. He realized that he was a child of mixed blood, born to parents of different races.

There was a chance that Darcia was lying, but he had no intention of doubting her.

He wanted to simply enjoy the love that he was being given and feel at ease, rather than spend his time and emotional endurance on doubting her words.

『And... Sleep...』

And so Darcia lulled Vandalieu to sleep.

As a three-month-old, Vandalieu was a good son who didn’t cause any trouble for Darcia, who was going through her first experience raising a child.

「Ah~」(Vandalieu)

When he was hungry, he made a noise like this and patted his stomach or pointed at Darcia’s chest and complained. When his diaper needed changing, he made a similar noise and patted his own hips.

As Darcia raised Vandalieu up in her arms and exposed her nipple to feed him her milk, she thought,「what a good boy.」

Of course, she knew that this wasn’t normal. That he was too clever.

But she didn’t do anything to make her own son uncomfortable.

『Maybe it’s because he takes after his father... after that person.』

She suspected that the intelligence of her three-month-old son was due to his father’s blood.

That and the fact that she had recently often been feeling some strange Mana coming from Vandalieu only gave her more reason to believe that this was the case. His father’s race was more proficient at using magic than Dark Elves.

『What bothers me more is the fact that he doesn’t laugh or cry... I wonder if he feels anxious because he doesn’t have a father?』

What bothered Darcia was the fact that Vandalieu didn’t laugh or cry like a normal infant.

When her beloved son was hungry or even when she tickled him, he was always as expressionless as a doll. She had thought that he was just in a bad mood at first, but it seemed that wasn’t the case.

It also didn’t seem to be the case that his emotions were simply underdeveloped. She had once spotted him silently crying with an empty expression.

On that occasion she had thought that he might be sick and applied all the healing magic that she knew, but it seemed that he had simply been crying after having a scary nightmare.

「But the thing that bothers me the most is when I give you my breast. Does Mommy’s breast not taste nice?」(Darcia)

What bothered Darcia the most about her son’s behavior was that when she went to breast-feed him, he didn’t suck on her breast straight away, but instead let his eyes wander without moving for a while first.

He drank the milk in the end, but... Darcia was worried that there was something wrong with her own milk.

Vandalieu, who was in the middle of the important task of sucking milk from his mother’s nipple, was filled with feelings of embarrassment and guilt.

『It’s not easy being an infant, huh.』

One would normally be happy and proud to have such a young and beautiful mother. However, on the inside, he was a man who had lived about thirty-seven years over his two previous lives, so he had mixed feelings about it.

Though his body was that of an infant, his mind was that of an adult so he felt overly conscious about it. He had been especially conscious of members of the opposite sex since he was a high-schooler on Earth.

『I wonder how the others felt? In Origin, I was about ten months old when my memories returned.』

Had the others who had been reborn in Origin felt embarrassment when their mother changed their diapers?

『But I can’t make my mother worry about it forever. I’ll just have to get used to it as soon as possible.』

Vandalieu had already imprinted in his mind that Darcia, his third mother, was “his mother”. He had no discomfort with this fact. In any case, despite this being his third life, this was the first time he was experiencing a mother’s love. It would be impossible for him to reject it.

And so, at first, he tried his best to act like a normal infant... But it was impossible.

It was impossible for him to act like an infant when he was a teenager on the inside. And for some reason, he found himself unable to laugh or cry. He couldn’t change his facial expression at all.

At first, he had thought his facial muscles were paralyzed, but he found that his mouth and eyelids moved normally. But they didn’t move naturally. He could only move them when he put conscious effort into it.

Was this because of the curse?

『Well, I’ll ask Mother about my expression not changing when I’m able to speak... There’s all kinds of problems, but I’ve learned quite a lot during the past two months as well.』

Darcia wasn’t aware that Vandalieu understood her words, so she hadn’t explained her past or current situation in detail, but he had a general idea from having lived with her for two months.

First, it seemed that Darcia’s husband, Vandalieu’s father, was a member of a greatly-feared race. As a mixed child of that race, Vandalieu knew that he would likely be the target of discrimination and persecution.

This was the reason why Darcia was living in this cave that she had dug out using spiritual magic in a forest away from where other people lived.

It was no wonder that he had never seen a single person in the two months he had been here other than his own mother.

『I know that she’s planning to return the Dark Elf village once I’ve grown up to some extent. And that this place is the country of Mirg, a part of the Amid Empire in the northwest part of the Bahn Gaia continent.』

It seemed that something would work out if she returned to the Dark Elf Village, so for now, her objective was probably to gather strength for that purpose.

For that reason, even though Vandalieu wasn’t even able to crawl yet, he began training himself in using magic.

The death-attribute magic that he had become able to use at will during his previous life. It would surely be helpful for his journey with his mother, or so Vandalieu thought. But for some reason, he couldn’t use it very well.

『Is this because my body’s still that of an infant? Or is it because of the curse?』

He considered this possibility. But giving up now because he couldn’t use his magic properly wasn’t an option. Because for Vandalieu, who didn’t have any cheat-like powers or aptitude for any other types of magic, this death-attribute magic was his only weapon.

「It would be nice if I could see Vandalieu’s status.」(Darcia)

Vandalieu was about a month and a half old when he heard these words from Darcia.

『Status?』

Vandalieu was unsuccessfully trying to use his death-attribute magic and was wishing that he could at least be able to crawl across the floor while keeping his head raised when he heard these from his mother. This isn’t a game, he thought, but... he was surprised when his own status was displayed inside his head.

Name: Vandalieu

Race: Dhampir (Dark Elf)

Age: 0 years old

Title: None

Job: None

Level: 0

Job history: None

Attributes:

Vitality: 12

Mana: 100,000,000

Strength: 10

Agility: 1

Stamina: 25

Intelligence: 20

Passive skills:

Superhuman Strength: Level 1

Rapid Healing: Level 1

Active skills:

None

Curses:

Experience gained in previous life not carried over

Cannot learn existing Jobs

Unable to gain Experience Points independently

『Wow, my Mana is no joke. Also, it seems my father was a Vampire. And I have three curses, just how badly does that god want me to kill myself?』

There were several things displayed on Vandalieu’s status that surprised him.

To start with, his race had been set as Dhampir. If that meant the same thing in Lambda as it did on Earth, that meant that he was a half-Vampire.

I see, that explains why she has to live in this hidden place. I don’t know what religions there are in Lambda, but I doubt they’d be very welcoming to a mixed-blood child of a Vampire.

Isn’t it actually quite likely that they’ll treat me like a monster and try to exterminate me? At the very least, this is something that might endanger my life.

The possibility of facing discrimination and prejudice due to being a Dhampir would always be there. Vandalieu’s life had been set to a hard mode even more extreme than he had expected.

The next surprising thing was his Mana. There was no MP stat on the status screen, so Mana must be the MP stat in the world of Lambda. But the number next to this stat was 100,000,000.

He didn’t know what the average for this stat was, but this was surely an abnormal number.

Was this what Rodcorte had mentioned earlier, the Mana that was housed in the『empty frame』left by his lack of cheat-like abilities, fortune and destiny? He had been unable to see anything like a status screen in Origin so he had no indication of how vast it was other than the words of the researchers who had said『This is over ten thousand times greater than a first-class Mage!』But now, seeing the number with his own eyes, it really was amazing.

『Well, I’m a powerless infant right now, though.』

No matter how much MP he had, there was no point if he couldn’t use magic. He had to relearn how to use his death-attribute magic as soon as possible.

『As for the rest, I seem to have normal strength and my agility is, well, like that. Endurance is like stamina, but intelligence doesn’t seem to be as simple as just a measure of how smart I am. It’s probably a stat that affects how fast I learn magic, the power of its effects, simultaneous casting and how much incantation I’ll need to perform it. It could even be related to my willpower.』

As Vandalieu deciphered his status, he understood why his agility was lower than every other stat. He was a month and a half old, but he couldn’t even keep his head raised. He couldn’t even roll over in bed by himself, let alone crawl. There’s no way this kind of infant could be considered agile.

But on the other hand, considering that he was a level 0 baby, his other stats were pretty high, though not as high as his Mana.

As expected of a Dhampir, he thought.

Next were his skills. From Vandalieu’s knowledge of games, he knew that passive skills were ones that exhibited their effects without requiring conscious effort while active skills required conscious use.

『Superhuman Strength and Rapid Healing, huh. These are probably skills that I have because I’m a Dhampir. Something like racial traits that you see in games, I suppose. But as I thought, death-attribute magic isn’t listed on there.』

His list of skills was mostly empty because he was still a baby, but Vandalieu was someone who had experienced thirty-seven years of life on Earth and in Origin. At least the skill of using elementary-level death-attribute magic that he had managed to learn in his previous life should have been there.

The reason it wasn’t was probably the three curses listed next.

『The curse that prevents my experience from my previous life from being carried over, it’s probably because of that. That’s why I don’t have my skills from my previous life or my life before that. The other two curses aren’t exactly great news for me, either. Those will make it really hard for me to learn a job or level up.』

After all, these were curses that Rodcorte had placed on him in order to encourage him to kill himself. Knowing that they were extremely troublesome curses, Vandalieu let out a great sigh.

『But choosing to just die quietly isn’t an option. As long as that’s the case, I have to keep gathering strength so that I can survive. I’ll keep trying to learn to use my death-attribute magic today as well, and... Ah... It’s no use... I’m sleepy.』

Vandalieu, like any other six-week-old infant, was defeated by his sleepiness.

『You have acquired the Death-Attribute Magic skill! 』

This announcement echoed inside Vandalieu’s head.

Three months after his birth, around the time he was finally able to support the weight of his own head with his neck, Vandalieu was finally successful in learning death-attribute magic.

『I’ve spent about two months failing to get my Mana to take the form of a spell. I guess this is the result of my hard work.』

With that said, the only spells he could use was『Sterilization』, a spell that exterminated microscopic organisms within its range, and『Bug Killer』, a version of the same spell that did the same thing to insects. The other spell he could use was『Magic Absorption Barrier』, a spell that created a barrier that absorbed Mana that it came into contact with, something that had no immediately visible effects.

He wanted to show Darcia, his mother, that he could use magic, but that proved difficult. It would be simple to show her that he could『absorb』her spells, but she never used her spiritual magic in his sight.

She probably used spiritual magic to at least create fire to use for cooking, but...

『With this body that’s only just become able to sit up, I can’t exactly get a good look around the room.』

As Vandalieu exhales to sit up on his bed, his mother simply laughs, thinking「He’s kind of like an old man」, but pays him no further attention.

『But I’m grateful that she’s at least taking me outside. I was about to die of boredom.』

Perhaps it was because he was now three months old; Darcia had started taking him outside in her arms on sunny days.

The reason for this was that she had decided that it would be a good stimulus for a growing child, and her stores of food were also getting dangerously low, so she was going outside to gather more.

But Vandalieu remembered the way she had been strangely cautious the first time she had taken him outside.

She had opened the door to the cave to allow just a little sunlight through and let it shine lightly on Vandalieu’s fingertip.

「What a relief! You didn’t inherit the Vampires’ weakness!」(Darcia)

As Vandalieu watched Darcia cry out in joy, he was reminded that his father was a Vampire. It would have been really troublesome if, as a Dhampir, he had even inherited his father’s inability to tolerate sunlight.

「Well then, let’s go outside with Mommy from now on, okay?」(Darcia)

As Darcia said that and took Vandalieu outside, the sight of the world beyond the cave moved Vandalieu to the point that he was at a loss for words (not that he could speak words in the first place).

『Oh... The world... Nature... It’s so huge!』

The outside of the cave was a forest. The air was fresh.

The sun was bright, the sky was a transparent blue, the clouds were pure white and the thickly growing trees were bright green.

It was the scenery of a forest with no particular features, but Vandalieu had spent twenty years imprisoned in a small room before being finished off by Amemiya Hiroto and Narumi. In his eyes, everything seemed to shine beautifully.

「Fufu, it seems you’ve taken a liking to being outside.」(Darcia)

His face was expressionless as usual, but Darcia understood from the fact that he was gazing at their surroundings as if he was in a daze that he was very happy. She began walking around and gathering food.

Of course, she didn’t do dangerous things like hunting animals using her bow and spiritual magic. She gathered edible grasses, fruits and mushrooms, and laid some traps to catch animals later.

Most of the food she gathered went into her own mouth, while a little was set aside to be made into baby food for Vandalieu.

『I have mixed feelings about this.』

Once a day, his young, beautiful Dark Elf mother said「say ah~」and fed him a spoonful of food. And with that, the amount of time she spent breast-feeding him decreased.

In order to survive from now on and make the journey from this area that was dangerous for a Dhampir to live to the Dark Elf village, weaning was necessary for Vandalieu. But even so, growing was a difficult task for him.

Incidentally, he enjoyed the taste of his mother’s milk more than the baby food.

『The Death-Attribute Magic skill has been upgraded to level 2! The following new skills have been added: Status Effect Resistance, Magic Resistance, Dark Vision, Bloodsucking!』

Once Vandalieu reached five months of age, Darcia began leaving him in the cave for hours at a time to go out and gather food from the forest.

「In a little while, we’ll be going to where Mommy was born. I have to make preparations for that, so even if you get lonely, bear with it, okay?」(Darcia)

Saying that, she left to hunt animals and went to the village, pretending to be a passing adventurer to buy supplies. There were times she didn’t come home for half a day at a time, but it was necessary to get the supplies they needed to survive, so there was no helping it.

Leaving an infant alone at home for half a day would have been questionable on Earth, but Vandalieu himself had no complaints about it. Because everything was being done for his own protection.

With no help from anyone else, Darcia was raising an infant by herself. A troublesome half-Vampire child, no less.

Judging from the fact that Vandalieu had not seen his father even once, it seemed that there was no help coming from the Vampire community either. Vampires looked down on half-Vampires just as much as humans did, if not more. Half-Vampires were often the targets of persecution by Vampires as well. Even in Japan, where people had a sense of values as human beings, people of mixed foreign blood were discriminated against. It was no surprise that half-bloods of different races in Lambda experienced the same.

『At this rate, it doesn’t seem like I’ll be able to see my father’s face.』

The reason being that he was probably no longer alive.

Thinking logically without taking emotions into account, it would be a much better choice for Darcia to abandon Vandalieu. Then she would be able to live a much more peaceful life.

That would make her life more carefree, free of responsibility. Once some time passed and her feelings died down, she would be able to live on as if nothing had happened. If she wanted a child, she could easily go to another country or back to the Dark Elf village and find a new man to create one with.

Despite this, the likely reason why Darcia had not abandoned Vandalieu was because she loved his father and Vandalieu himself.

『This is a bit of a cliché, but being loved is a truly happy thing.』

With this happiness driving him on, Vandalieu continued his hard work.

He spent his time awake practicing magic, strengthening his body by exercising his arms and legs and practicing using his voice. The result of this was that his Death-Attribute Magic skill had increased and he was able to cast with visible effects that Darcia could see.

「Wow, to think that you can use magic even though you’re still a baby! Vandalieu, you’re a genius, aren’t you~♪」

How happy it made him for someone to be proud of his increase in skill, for someone to praise him.

Though his ability to use other skills seemed to be not the result of his hard work, but his growing up.

His Status Effect Resistance was a skill that granted him resistance against poison, sickness, fatigue due to lack of sleep, hunger and other various detrimental or fatal conditions that could be applied to him through magic. This was likely something he had inherited from his Vampire father.

His Magic Resistance, a skill that mitigated the damage and other effects that he took from magical attacks, was a racial characteristic of Dark Elves. His mother, Darcia, also had this skill.

Dark Vision was a characteristic that both of his parents possessed, which allowed him to see even on completely starless nights as if it were daytime.

And finally, Bloodsucking was self-explanatory. His canine teeth had grown unusually quickly compared to his other teeth... It was a skill that he had acquired when fangs had grown on both the top and bottom side of his mouth.

「They’ve appeared, after all. Though it might be better for you not to, Vandalieu...」(Darcia)

As Darcia said this upon noticing that her son had grown fangs, she cut the head of the rabbit she had caught with a knife. And then she caught the dripping blood on a wooden plate.

「Here, try drinking this.」(Darcia)

『Mother, are you insane?』

In response to the iron-like smell coming from the plate that had been brought close to his mouth, Vandalieu looked up at Darcia with half-closed eyes.

On Earth, blood is sometimes used as an ingredient in sauces and eel or turtle blood is sometimes distilled into wine. I know that, but... Wouldn’t feeding an infant the raw blood of an animal be considered child abuse? I think that would be the case, but she doesn’t seem to want to change her mind.

『Well, I guess I’ll try it.』

It would surely be disgusting. As he thought this, Vandalieu extended his tongue and drank a little of the rabbit’s blood. Surprisingly, he didn’t think it tasted bad.

『Huh? I can drink this. It tastes like iron, but it’s not as bad as I thought... In fact, it’s delicious?』

It hadn’t been distilled into wine or had spices added to it to mask the smell, but for Vandalieu, the rabbit’s blood was as easy to drink as his mother’s milk.

He was astonished, but Darcia explained as she stroked his growing hair.

「Vandalieu, you can drink blood like your daddy. But it doesn’t mean you have to drink blood, so even if you’re hungry, only drink it if Mommy isn’t around, okay?」(Darcia)

I see, so I’m a half-Vampire after all. That explains why Dhampirs are shunned.

Well, for now, I’ll just think of it as an increase in the variety of my baby food.

As Vandalieu approached six months of age, he gained the ability to crawl. That day, Darcia had left Vandalieu at home and made a long journey to a nearby town.

『I’m glad Mother has taken my unusual intelligence for an infant to be a good thing.』

Including the fact that he could use magic, Darcia’s only response to Vandalieu’s abnormality was「Amazing!」and she had not questioned it or expressed any bewilderment about it.

「Dhampirs are amazing, after all.」(Darcia)

Because she often said that, it was likely that she thought that all of Vandalieu’s unusual characteristics are due to the fact that he was a Dhampir. He was very thankful that she had not investigated it any further.

After all, even if he wanted to explain it, he couldn’t speak yet as he was only six months old. He was continuing his practice on using his voice, but he was frustrated that he couldn’t form proper words yet.

In light novels or manga that Vandalieu had read on Earth, it was common for characters that had been reincarnated in another world to keep that fact a secret. But he thought he should break that common pattern. That he should at least tell Darcia, as soon as possible.

Because she was his own mother.

『If this was a normal reincarnation or trip to another world, I’d consider keeping it a secret too. But my situation is different. Because soon, a hundred people from the same world as me will be reincarnated here with cheat-like powers.』

Amemiya Hiroto and the others, the ones who had abandoned him without even searching for him on Origin, the ones who had killed him. Once they died in Origin, they would surely be reincarnated here in Lambda.

Vandalieu didn’t know when that would happen. When Vandalieu had died in Origin, they looked to be around twenty years old. So unless they were involved in an accident or something, it would take at least fifty years. But it wasn’t certain that time flowed at the same rate in both Origin and Lambda.

It could even be that for each day that passed in Lambda, a year passed in Origin.

Well, it probably wasn’t that extreme, but they would definitely be reincarnated in Lambda one day. Even Rodcorte himself couldn’t prevent that from happening.

『The problem is what Rodcorte will say to them before they’re reincarnated. I screamed to him that I’d kill them. So if they were to be reincarnated here before I died, he’d at least warn them about me.』

After all, Rodcorte’s goal was to have them develop this world. It would be problematic if they died before that happened, so he would definitely warn them about Vandalieu.

In that case, they would see Vandalieu as a threat and be cautious of him.

In their first lives, they were Japanese people raised in the peaceful country of Japan, so it would be fine if they wanted to talk about things or apologize for what happened in Origin.

But Vandalieu couldn’t say for sure that there wouldn’t be any of them who would kill him upon finding him, to simply eliminate the threat. Just as Vandalieu himself had led an unimaginably wretched life, they might have experienced something like that as well.

Even if they were heroes there, if they had to deal with evil terrorists or criminal organizations for extended periods of time, who knew what kind of state they would be in.

Yes, heroes. These were unlucky.

『I heard them just before I died, but if I’m not mistaken, they were notified that an Undead had appeared and come to kill me. If that’s the case, they were probably putting their cheat-like powers to use and being international heroes or something. Like the ones in American superhero comics.』

And Vandalieu himself was a half-Vampire, a Dhampir.

If they displayed the pacifism, philanthropism and respect for human rights that they did as Japanese people, there wouldn’t be a problem. But if they were affected by the anti-Vampire, anti-Dhampir values of Lambda, that would be dangerous.

Facing a hundred people with cheat-like powers as enemies wouldn’t be an easy task.

The one getting caught up in all of this would be Darcia. It would be too dangerous and unreasonable to expect her to face that without knowing anything. This was why Vandalieu thought that he had to explain the situation to her as soon as possible.

『If Mother separates herself from me because of that reason, then there’s nothing I can do about that.』

It was only for half a year, but Darcia was the first mother that Vandalieu had known. He had never been loved as much as she had loved him.

『Well, if possible, I don’t want to be separated from her.』

For that purpose, my revenge on them... Well, it’s impossible to forgive them or reconcile at this point, but I’d be content if they just kept their distance from me.

This was the extent to which Vandalieu was attached to Darcia. It was also partially because his thoughts had become strangely clear after he had been reborn, but he thought that he could give up on his revenge for the sake of his mother.

After I grow up a little more, I’ll explain everything to Darcia. And then if I can use the knowledge and death-attribute magic that I have from my time on Earth and in Origin to live a fulfilled life, I’ll be happy with that.

And if I can just watch those guys with cheat-like abilities put all their effort into this world, then that’ll be fine.

Vandalieu thought this as he continued crawling across the floor to continue his physical training, but he felt suddenly hungry.

『I guess I’ll just drink some blood.』

He lifted the rabbit that Darcia had captured alive from its cage. Though he was only six months old, he was still a Dhampir with the Superhuman Strength skill, so it was simpler than he thought.

He used『Sterilization』and『Bug Killer』on the struggling rabbit to sanitize it and then bit into it.

『Blood is delicious, but Mother’s milk is still better.』

Sating his hunger by mercilessly sucking the blood from the convulsing rabbit, Vandalieu longed for his mother’s breast.

That day, the time that Darcia was supposed to come back passed, but she did not return.